‘WE HAVE NOWHERE TO GO’: ROHINGYA REFUGEES FACE NEW CRACKDOWN IN INDIA

Sun 07 March 2021:

Authorities in Indian-controlled Kashmir have sent at least 168 Rohingya refugees to a holding centre, police said Sunday, in a process that they say is for the deportation of thousands of the refugees living in the region.

The development comes a day after the Home Department issued a notification on March 5 under Section 3(2)e of Foreigners Act, and set up “holding centres” in Hiranagar of Kathua in J&K, that will house the Rohingyas who are illegally staying in the Valley. The 168 also include children and women, who will be kept in this sub-jail that the government calls “holding centres”.

Distressed #Rohingya refugees in Jammu, #India say they are fleeing from their camps out of fear of being detained and deported.

Earlier yesterday, approximately 168 refugees were detained including children and women. pic.twitter.com/uCTBOi81KO

— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) March 7, 2021

A senior government official on condition of anonymity has said that the refugees will be subjected to a verification process going by the prescribed guidelines as per the Government of India, at the holding centres. The government intends to deport these Rohingyas back to the land where they belong, post verification.

Inspector-General Mukesh Singh. He said around 5,000 Rohingya Muslims have taken refuge in Jammu in the past few years.

“All of them are illegally living here and we have begun identifying them,” Singh said. “This process is to finally deport them to their country.”

Since Saturday, officials have called hundreds of Rohingya to a stadium in Jammu, taking their personal details and biometrics and testing them for the coronavirus. A jail has been converted into a holding centre in the outskirts of the city, and at least 168 Rohingya have so far been sent there, Singh said.

Khatija, a Rohingya Muslim woman who uses one name, said the Indian authorities took away her son on Saturday and she didn’t know where he was being kept. Her daughter-in-law gave birth on Sunday morning, she said.

“We left the camps and started walking on the highway. We don’t know where to. We have nowhere to go. We can’t go back to our country,” 42-year-old Abdul Rohim, who was staying in one such camp since 2014, told ThePrint.

6523 Rohingyas leaving Jammu after verification drive. pic.twitter.com/b5v6I3wa7R

— M Sreenivasulu Reddy (@aceduos) March 7, 2021

According to Rohim, police forces walked into the camp late Saturday and detained the refugees, which included his 26-year-old son, Mohammad Yaseen, and daughter-in-law Ruqaya Begum.

“The police just told us that they needed to do verification checks. But our children were taken to the holding centre instead. Today morning policemen came again to detain. We panicked and just left the camps,” Rohim said.

Mostly male members of families have been detained

Ali Johar, co-director of the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative, a Delhi-based NGO, said he had received reports and calls from camps in Jammu and Samba district from refugees pleading to “rescue their family members”.

According to Johar, who is also a refugee, Jammu houses 6,523 refugees at 39 camps that are located across the region.

He noted that at least 45 of those detained were from two locations in Samba and the rest were all from Jammu.

After detention of over 160 #Rohingya refugees in Jammu, those in camps have packed their bags and started fleeing. “Our family members have been separated from us…We will march to Myanmar on foot. We are not at peace here.” pic.twitter.com/03efHYnM7V

— Zafar Aafaq (@ZafarAafaq) March 7, 2021

“Mostly male members are being detained but we have also got reports that children, women and the elderly too have been taken by the police. We are not sure what has led to this. The refugees carry a card provided to us by the UNHCR (United National Human Right Commission). There might be some cases where the validity might have expired but most of us have the cards,” Johar told ThePrint.

The holding centre in Jammu is built to accommodate 250 inmates, where nearly 168 Rohingyas were ferried last week on Saturday, in buses. The holding centre is a “sub-jail” that was readied a week before Rohingyas were shifted here. The prisoners and undertrials in this sub-jail were shifted to other prisons of Jammu.

While Bangladesh became the primary shelter for Rohingyas, several moved to India. However, a crackdown to apprehend Rohingyas in India was also launched under the Narendra Modi-led BJP government.

Recently, the South Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, Meenakshi Ganguly told a leading US daily “Rohingyas have been targetted time and again since 2014, for political reasons. India is well aware that the Rohingyas are one of the most persecuted minorities globally.

While close to a million have sought shelter in Bangladesh, a few that arrived in India need protection and not persecution. It is India’s responsibility under the refugee’s convention as well,” Ganguly had stressed.

More than 1 million Rohingya have fled waves of violent persecution in their native Myanmar and are currently mainly living in overcrowded, squalid refugee camps in Bangladesh.

An estimated 40,000 Rohingya have taken refuge in parts of India. Fewer than 15,000 are registered with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Many have settled in areas of India with large Muslim populations, including the southern city of Hyderabad, the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi. Some have taken refuge in northeast India bordering Bangladesh and Myanmar.

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

TWITTER (CLICK HERE)
https://twitter.com/IpIndependent